You know, I swore to myself that I wasn't going to get involved in any controversaries anymore, because my Libraness just doesn't like it.
However....
There is a reason there are rules in horary. As in, the rules help the astrologer to answer the question. Oh, I did the whole "my intuition" deal in the beginning (hey, supposedly, my intuition is strong, since I have Moon in Pisces, with Neptune in partile trine to Moon, and a huge 12th house stellium
) Every time I looked at a chart based on my own (which is in the real world seriously sound) "intuition" my answer was wrong. As in incorrect, finito, and which is why I almost gave up on horary. In point of fact, learning the traditional rules of horary, which involve to the truly student sect, reception, and aspect theory, has helped in my study of natal charts. So I suppose I could say that the sidebar by chance has made me a better astrologer.
There is a difference between "intuition" and judgement. And as an "intuitive" which usually means that you can experience the emotions of the querent as your own (waybread at least will get the Deanna Troi reference, and I can unequivocally state that there are times that I honestly need to retreat from everything because it becomes overwhelming), that can actually cloud the judgement. Experiencing the emotions of the querent gets in the way of rationality. And considering astrology as an "intuitive art" or a subjective method of divinitation is in my opinion a slander and misconception of the language. There is a difference between the Psychic Hotline, Tarot, the Ouija Board and astrology.
If we stop treating astrology as an "art" subject to the interpretation (I get realism, and the whole impressionism idea was cool but...lacking) of the practioner, and rather treated it as what it actually is...as in the language of the stars, then we need to respect the rules. How do you interpret language? Do you pay attention to things like subjective and conditional? How do you treat personal pronouns? Are they masculine or feminine? And what about idioms? Once, in French 2 in high school, a very good friend of mine was attempting to say that he was full because he ate too much. Je suis plein does not mean the same thing as J'ai trop mange. One means I ate enough, and the other means...well do the work.
It does not, in the end, matter if you wish to follow the rules for horary (though I often find it seriously ironic that many, many modern natal astrologers will default to traditional methods for horary...I'm all like...jeez, why one and not the other??) or if you wish to just help a querent with a natal chart. Sect, sign position, degree, quadrant, applying or separating, house/sign rulership, aspect theory...these all are nothing more than the extra tools that can take either an horarist or any astrologer from good to amazing.
I expect that many will disagree, and I'm ok with other people "feeling" or "intuiting" the way that they will. I'm tired of being told that my opinions don't count, or that I don't understand anything. I understand much, and have learned much. It is ok to disagree. One needn't participate in all the arguments to which one is invited.
tamara